


we'll defy the rules until we die.

by thequeenofokay



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:13:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenofokay/pseuds/thequeenofokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If she closes her eyes, Raina can pretend she’s not trapped by dark cell walls. She can pretend they’re not gone. She can pretend she’s not alone.</p>
<p>// in which raina falls in love, from the bitter end to the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll defy the rules until we die.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ who doesn't love really sad fic for obscure ot3s.
> 
> \+ shoutout to georgia for being super. loads of my fics should have shoutouts to georgia tbh. she's super and reads over all this shit for me.
> 
> \+ title from "sinners" by lauren aquilina.

**five.**

If she closes her eyes, Raina can pretend she’s not trapped by dark cell walls. She can pretend they’re not gone. She can pretend she’s not alone.

If she closes her eyes, she can still feel Kara’s hands on her waist, Grant’s fingers tracing her collarbone. She can remember their kisses, their smiles.

She can still remember the plans they made. She can almost force herself to believe that they’ll come true—that they’ll still buy a house and settle down and get away from Shield.

It’s like that promise, that future she could have had is still taunting her.

Maybe this is her fault. She shouldn’t have pushed Kara towards revenge on Shield. The universe must be punishing her for something, she’s sure. Her soul must be more bitter and blackened than she’d realised if she deserves this.

She has to remind herself to breathe.

She’s hardly seen a soul since Shield threw her down here. Doctors checked her stitches, and once, Coulson came down to do little more than gloat.

She thinks they might be trying to send her mad, until she spills all her secrets. She’s not sure what they want from her. What could she tell them? How she’ll never forgive them for stealing the only two people she loves in the world?

She hopes they’ve not come down because they’re _scared_ of what she’ll do. Somehow, thought, she doubts they fear the shell that’s left of the girl in the flower dress.

Maybe they just have no use for her. They’re just going to leave her down here until she rots.

 

**four.**

They drag Bobbi from the jet, tie her to a chair, and Grant prepares their equipment as they wait for her to come back to consciousness.

Raina’s got that feeling that she’s had in her chest for months now, that feeling that something is so, _so_ wrong, but it’s growing now. It feels like a warning—something’s coming for them.

She catches Kara’s hand. ‘You want to do this,’ she asks, ‘right?’

Kara looks at her, with determination covering up the fear in her eyes. ‘We have to,’ she says. ‘Don’t we?’

Raina’s not sure. She thinks so, but everything since Hydra rose has been a strange blur that’s hurt from the start. She doesn’t know how they got here, exactly. This was never what they intended—they just wanted to feel safe, for once.

She just squeezes Kara’s hand, tugs her a little closer. ‘If it’s what you need,’ she says.

Kara nods. ‘I need it,’ she says, and Raina tries not to think that it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than anything else.

‘Well then,’ Raina says, and she holds Kara’s hand a little tighter still. ‘Are we ready, Grant, baby?’ she calls.

‘We’re ready,’ he says.

 

It’s dawn when the Shield jets touch down.

 

(Raina stayed up to watch the sunrise with her grandmother, sometimes, when she was a little girl.

‘It means new beginnings,’ her grandmother would say. She’d stroke Raina’s hair. ‘You’ll have one, one day. You’ll _become_.’)

 

It’s a hazy blur, after that, that Raina will never be able to completely make sense of. There’s a bullet in her shoulder and one in her leg, and she’s helpless, forced to watch.

Most of what she remembers from the end is the pain. She remembers screaming until her throat was raw and hoarse, screaming for them to _wake up_ , not leave her here. She remembers Kara and Grant’s blood staining her hands, her dress.

She remembers the handcuffs locking round her wrists instead, the agents dragging her to her feet. She remembers waiting and waiting to bleed out. It doesn’t come.

 

**three.**

They find Kara is San Juan just as Shield finds Whitehall and Hydra and honestly, it couldn’t go worse. Shield are, as always, adopting a policy of shoot first and ask questions later, and to make it all that little bit worse, they consider Grant a traitor for leaving.

Shield are too preoccupied with the underground city, though. Raina finds it almost funny—they’ve no idea what they’re letting themselves in for. Once, she’d have been down there too. She’d have been fulfilling her destiny, becoming what she’s _supposed_ to be.

But Kara is so much more important.

Raina isn’t usually one for killing. She leaves that up to Kara and Grant. She keeps a pistol on her anyway—Grant says it saves him from worrying a little.

She shoots Whitehall eight times in the chest.

Once for Kara. Once for Grant. Once for herself. And another five times, just for good measure. Just to make sure he stays dead.

Kara wakes in Grant’s arms. She sobs and sobs, hands shaking, clinging to the both of them, hardly able to speak.

Afterwards is hard.

It’s spent in the kind of hotel rooms where they can lock the door, and no one will ask questions when Kara smashes vases or wakes from nightmares _screaming_. They hold her and try to tell her it will be okay, but it’s a lie, it’s such a lie Raina can barely force the words out.

Healing is slow, not that they would expect anything different. They find the man who designed the mask that’s fused to Kara’s face, and they force him to fix it as well as he can.

When Kara is sleeping, Grant and Raina kill him. Grant’s more merciful than Raina would like—he just puts a bullet between the man’s eyes. As far as Raina is concerned, he should have died as slowly as they could manage. Anyone involved in what happened to Kara should _pay_.

They track down the man responsible for Kara’s capture next. They try to keep it from her—it wouldn’t be good for her to know what they’re doing. She’s not ready.

It’s hard, though, to keep a prisoner from your girlfriend when you’re living in such close quarters and constantly on the move, and Kara finds him tied up in the bathroom of their motel.

‘What is this?’ she asks. ‘Why is he here?’

‘You weren’t supposed to see it,’ Raina says. She’s suddenly guilty, unsure if what they’re doing is the right thing.

‘We’re sorry, baby,’ Grant says quietly. He holds his arms out for her and she moves into them. ‘He hurt you. We were going to hurt him for it.’

‘We can stop,’ Raina says. She reaches across to stroke Kara’s cheek.

Kara stares back at Bakshi, seeming unaffected, but Raina sees her stuff her hands in her pockets to cover up her shaking hands. ‘No,’ Kara says. ‘He deserves it.’ She clenches her jaw. ‘But don’t kill him. Let him rot.’

They leave him, bruised and bloodied, on Shield’s door step.

It’s quieter again, after that, but they’re constantly having to stay one step ahead of Shield and Hydra and everyone else interested in the three of them.

‘I remember,’ Kara says one night. She doesn’t look at them, but stares at the wall of their hotel room with that hurt, scarred look that Raina _needs_ to find a way to stop.

‘What do you remember?’ Raina asks. She curls an arm around Kara, worried she’ll slip away.

‘I remember who handed me over to Hydra. I know who gave up my safe house.’ She looks up at them. ‘Bobbi Morse.’

 

**two.**

Hydra rises when they are all miles and miles apart. Raina’s been laying low from Shield after they took down Quinn, who’s been funding her for a year or so.

Grant contacts her as soon as he can to check she’s safe and confirm he’s okay. Kara takes longer. Raina’s starting to panic, alone in her hotel room, when the call finally comes to say she’s safe, or alive at least.

They agree to check in with each other every day as they make their way to Grant’s safe house outside LA.  

Raina hitchhikes, calls in favours, steals cars to get herself across the country. It’s hard, and she’s scared, constantly looking over her shoulder, sure Hydra or Shield or _someone_ is going to find her. The fear is crushing, but she presses on with the knowledge that she’ll see Grant and Kara soon—the people she loves, the people she _needs_.

Raina’s a day from the safe house when Kara doesn’t call. She’s still not called when she reaches Grant. They wait, sure she must have been delayed or run out of money or anything other than that one thing that Raina _refuses_ to consider: that Kara’s not coming home to them.

 

**one.**

Raina’s known Grant a few months—since he’d been sent by Garrett to her labs to check in on her research for the Centipede project.

Raina’s good at people; she’s good at knowing what they _want_. But there’s something different about Grant. Different and dangerous.

She likes it.

They manage to keep in contact. It’s a little difficult—there’s times he goes off the grid for months at a time, and there’s times she’s too busy with work to find the time to talk to him. But she enjoys it; it’s been hard to form anything _real_ with the life she’s lived.

And then John Garrett dies.

She feels a little guilty—she’s more upset about her funding suddenly drying up than about hearing that he’d died on a mission. She goes to the funeral. It seems only respectful, and she tells herself it’s not just an excuse to see Grant.

She finds him after the service. He’s got a look that’s almost more lost and despondent than grieving. He gives her a little nod of acknowledgment, and the woman with him, holding his arm, stroking it comfortingly, looks across to Raina and waves her over like she knows her.

‘You must be Raina,’ she says. ‘Grant’s told me about you.’

‘Oh,’ Raina says. She tilts her head slightly, but all he does is acknowledge it with a nod.

‘I’m Kara,’ she says. She holds out a hand for Raina to shake, which she takes. Grant’s mentioned Kara. He’s mentioned her a lot, actually. He’s never really specified what their relationship was, but she could always tell he at least admired her. Now though, Raina feels it’s safe to assume that Kara is Grant’s girlfriend.

She’s not sure exactly how she feels about that.

‘It’s nice to meet you,’ she says. ‘Though the circumstances are unfortunate. Did you know Garret well?’

‘I suppose,’ Kara says. She pauses, slowly, as though she’s picking her words carefully. ‘I didn’t like him.’

‘Oh?’ Raina asks.

Kara looks up at Grant, pained. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘He wasn’t…’ she starts. ‘He wasn’t a great person, I guess.’

Raina feels like there’s something she’s missing—something sore and dark between Grant, Kara and Garrett. At least, Kara doesn’t seem sad to see Garrett gone, and somehow Raina instinctively trusts Kara far more than she’s ever trusted Garrett.

‘I guess I didn’t know him that well,’ Raina says.

Grant lets out a slightly choked noise that sounds like it was supposed to be a laugh. ‘Not many people did.’

Kara glances up at him, frowning in concern. He’s still got this slightly distant look, but it’s less lost. ‘Time to leave?’ she asks.

He nods. ‘It’s probably best if we do,’ he says.

Kara hums in agreement. She turns to Raina. ‘Come to dinner with us,’ she says.

Raina considers, for a second. It seems like a mistake, to go to dinner with the first person she’s really connected to in as long as she can remember and his sweet, stunning girlfriend.

‘Sure,’ she says.

 

**zero.**

When she is a little girl, Raina’s grandmother tells her she’s special. She tells her that her story will be beautiful, worthy of folklore.

Raina knows her grandmother is always right.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/karapalamas) and [tumblr](http://karapalamas.tumblr.com/) for sad poly headcanons.


End file.
